It was 1969, at the Paris Conservatoire, when everything changed for a pair of strong-willed, piano-playing sisters from France named Katia and Marielle Labèque.
They were practicing a thorny two-piano work, Visions de l'Amen, by Olivier Messiaen, one of the school's teachers and by then a legendary composer. He heard the sisters play and asked if one of them would like to record the piece with his wife. They refused, saying they had already decided to stick together as a piano duo. Messiaen relented, then supervised what would be the sisters' very first recording.
A movement of that recording closes out a new three-disc set by the Labèques. The album is titled 55. It contains 55 tracks — a toast to the sisters' 55 years (and then some) of recording. We have the expected gems from the Labèque's substantial back catalog, repertoire standards and favorites ranging from Dvořák's Slavonic Dances and Gabriel Fauré's Dolly Suite to arrangements of music by Gershwin, Bernstein and Debussy.
But the set is no mere retrospective compilation. The surprise is that nearly half of the tracks are brand new recordings for this project. And with the new tracks, the Labèques are out to make a point. Many of them are written by women composers — too often neglected, admittedly even by the sisters themselves. There is sturdy music by the 20th century Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz, who is slowly receiving much deserved recognition, and a track by the enigmatic Ethiopian nun Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, who died in 2023. Also Lili Boulanger, the talented, short-lived sister of famed pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. And the Labèques include a powerful arrangement of "Troubled Water" by African American composer Margaret Bonds, born in 1913.
About half of the recordings on the set feature the sisters each at their own piano in full-throated, 2-piano duets — from Manuel de Falla's flamenco-infused Spanish Dance No. 1 to a rowdy "Carolina Shout" by stride jazz king James P. Johnson. The 2-piano arrangement of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring sounds like a feral beast bursting through the boxes of wood and wire.
The Labèques also play 4-handed repertoire — that's two people sitting at one piano. It's usually a more intimate affair, with music to match, like the sister's classic recordings of Ravel's Mother Goose and Bizet's delicate Jeux d'enfants. But they also tap into lesser-known French composers like Marie Jaëll, a friend of Liszt, who in 1893 was the first French pianist to perform all 32 of Beethoven's sonatas. In her little waltz, Op. 8, No. 8, the Labèques bring out the music's beguiling mix of dark shadows and French charm.
The 3-disc set is a far-reaching treasure trove that even allows the sisters to step away from each other for a few choice moments. Katia takes up with Chick Corea on the Bill Evans standard "We Will Meet Again," and plays music by the American William Duckworth and the Croatian Dora Pejačević, while Marielle solos on tracks by Erik Satie, the U.K.'s Howard Skempton and Bryce Dessner, of the American indie rock band The National.
What Messiaen heard in the Labèques' playing remains their calling card — extraordinary precision, finishing each other's musical sentences, plus warmth of tone and a palpable fearlessness.
For over a half century, Katia and Marielle Labèque have, well, four-handedly redefined what music made for a pair of pianists can sound like. And this new 55-track album proves it.
Copyright 2026 NPR
